


another dream come true.

by katarama



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [10]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Holding Hands, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5015203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allison, Kira, Lydia, and Malia all live in the same apartment building.  Allison has feelings for Lydia but doesn't know how Lydia feels about her, so Malia suggests they date to see how Lydia reacts.</p><p>When Allison realizes she has feelings for Malia, too, things get complicated.</p><p>(Allison/Kira/Lydia/Malia college AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	another dream come true.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KuriKuri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuriKuri/gifts).



> Happy Teen Wolf Femslash Writing Week!

Friday nights in have been a tradition for Allison and Malia since Beacon Hills High.  There were countless nights spent together in sleeping bags on the air mattress in Allison’s living room, Allison worn down from gymnastics or archery practice and Malia tired from beating her head against trigonometry and precalculus.  Allison knows that Malia refuses to eat caramel corn but will cover her popcorn in painful amounts of salt and movie theater butter, and Malia knows that the cure for anything that ails Allison is an unopened package of pull-and-peel twizzlers.  Allison knows that Malia gives the bluntest, most honest advice, and Malia knows that Allison will never, ever treat her like she’s less intelligent or less hardworking than she is.

If Malia had applied to college early (like Allison) instead of getting her application in at the very last minute (like Stiles), she would’ve known where she was going back in December or January.  Allison and Malia would’ve signed up for housing together, and they could have been roommates, and it would make Friday nights in even easier.  But Allison ended up with a random roommate, while Malia and Stiles signed together.

Allison reassures herself with the knowledge that they ended up in the same building, at least, right down the hall from each other.  Malia is closer than she was in high school, proximity-wise.  Things would be easier, though, if she had just roomed with Malia.  If she had, she wouldn’t be sitting next to Malia on the couch, trying hard not to humiliate herself and ogle her roommate’s breasts. 

“Allison, which do you like better?” Lydia asks.  There’s an outfit in each hand, a dress in the left and a crop top and a mini-skirt in the right.  It’s hard to focus on the outfits, though.  Lydia’s standing in the middle of the living room in a soft pink bra and perfectly matching lace underwear, her posture perfect, as always.  Allison is surprised she isn’t wearing heels to match; it wouldn’t be out of place in the sheer absurdity of the situation, Lydia standing nearly naked in the room with a friend of Allison’s she barely knows.  There’s a blush forming on Allison’s cheeks as her eyes trace along the tops of Lydia’s bra cups.

“She likes the red one,” Malia says when Allison’s vocal chords fail her.  Allison has never been more grateful for her best friend, even though Malia has an expression on her face that is entirely too knowing.  

“I asked Allison,” Lydia says primly.  

“The red one,” Allison agrees, because Malia knows her taste in clothes better than anyone, having been dragged along on far too shopping trips with Allison.  “You sure you wanna go out?  You’re welcome to stay in with Malia and me.”

“I’m sure,” Lydia says, glancing at Malia and back at Allison.  Allison’s a bit disheartened, because she’s going to be living with Lydia for the rest of the year (and maybe the next four years, if this works out), and Malia is her best friend.  She really wants them to get along, because otherwise, things will be awkward.

“I’ll be back tonight, though,” Lydia says, and Allison smiles.  It’s a peace offering, and Allison is more than willing to accept it.

“Have fun,” Allison tells her, and Lydia heads back to her room.  Allison carefully avoids Malia’s loudly expressive faces, turning her attention back to the television.  Lydia leaves halfway through the first movie, and when it finishes up, Allison makes popcorn and they start up a second one.

Allison doesn’t know how she manages to doze off - the movie is all loud bangs and explosions, but it’s mindless and she’s tired, and next thing she knows she’s stirring awake to the couch cushion to her left dipping and sound of close, hushed voices.

“She had a long week,” Malia says.  Allison faintly recognizes her tone of voice, the one that comes out when she’s being protective, when she thinks she’s being quiet but really isn’t.  “Let her sleep.”

“I know she has,” Lydia says.  Allison cracks her eyes open to see Lydia’s legs folded up on the couch.  Lydia’s eye makeup is still flawless, but her lipstick is smudged.  Allison wants to run her fingers along the corners of her lips, to wipe away the stray streaks of deep red.  

“Too late,” Allison mumbles, mouth dry.  “Already awake.”

Allison knows that if she were more awake, if everything was less fuzzy and sleepy, she’d be clinging to the moment.  Malia’s sweater is soft and warm against the skin of her cheek, and Malia’s arm is gently wrapped around Allison.  Lydia is on Allison’s other side, looking gorgeous in her red dress, prettier than even Allison would’ve imagined.  There’s concern and softness on Lydia’s face, though, softness that even Allison doesn’t get to see often.  

“Ready to head to bed?” Lydia asks.  “You’ll be sore if you sleep there.”

Allison groans, slowly lifting her head from Malia’s shoulder and stretching her arms out over her head.  She checks her phone to see the time before she finally gives in.  “Yeah.  Help me up.”

Lydia slides her bare feet to the floor and reaches out a manicured hand to help Allison.  Allison presses a dry kiss to Malia’s shoulder before she’s pulling herself up to her feet and trailing Lydia back to her room.  She brushes her teeth and washes her face and changes into her pajamas.

Allison’s phone vibrates as she goes to set her alarm.

“were gonna talk tomorrow about lydia,” it says.

She ignores it and sets her alarm for 9:45 AM.

* * *

 

“She doesn’t like me that way,” Allison says immediately.  It’s better than some of the other openers she considered using, ‘ _I think she might be with someone_ ,’ and ‘ _she goes out on Friday nights and comes back looking well-kissed, but never takes a cab or a coat, I think she might be banging Stiles_ ’.  She knows it would actually be more reasonable to argue that Lydia is kissing Scott, a boy living on the floor below, because Scott is sweet and smiles at Lydia in a way that makes Lydia smile back.  Scott’s roommate Kira is in Malia and Allison’s Intro Writing course, though, and promised them that Lydia and Scott aren’t a thing.

Plus, she knows if her argument was that Lydia was with other people, Malia’d cut her off quick by reminding her of Boyd, Erica, and Isaac.

“No,” Malia says, just as firmly.  “Lydia  _puts up with_  most people.  Stiles has himself convinced somehow that he’s in love with her, and even  _he_  doesn’t think she’s nice a lot of the time.  Lydia  _likes_  you.  She’s nice to you because she likes you.”

Allison wishes Malia were right.  It’s been a few weeks of living with Lydia, and Allison can’t even pretend she isn’t crushing.  But Allison has no idea how to tell if Lydia actually likes her, or how to tell if anyone likes her, really.  Her experience is pretty minimal.  She dated someone once, back in high school, but things with Cora fizzled out pretty quickly.  They made it to second base before they realized that their families really, really didn’t get along so well, and that it would be a lot of work to keep things going.  They decided maybe it was better if they went back to keeping things at the friends level, and that was that.

It’s always been tricky, though, for Allison to tell how she feels about other people, let alone how they feel about her.  Malia may be certain, but a few smiles and painting nails together isn’t enough to convince Allison that Lydia wants them to be together.

“Fine,” Malia says, rolling her eyes.  “You don’t believe me.  I can prove it.”

“Why do I already get the feeling this is going to be the worst idea you’ve ever head?” Allison asks.

“Because you’re dramatic,” Malia says.  “We both know you’ll tell me it’s a bad idea and then Lydia will do something and you’ll be on board like… a day from now.”

Allison sighs.  “Fine, what’s your idea?”

* * *

 

“You two are going on a date??”

Kira looks as surprised as Allison feels.  The whole situation is ridiculous, really, every bad teen movie cliche rolled into one.  Two best friends go on a date to make one’s crush jealous.  Allison has seen enough teen movies to know exactly how this goes down; everyone falls for everyone and there’s a love triangle mess and in the end the nerdy girl gets the pretty jock boy.

Or something.

But, inexplicably, Allison agreed.  She wonders if it is a good plan after all, though, because she’s not sure how to tell if it’s working or not.  She casually dropped into conversation with Lydia that she would be out on Friday night, instead of in, because she and Malia were having a date night, and Lydia didn’t even act the slightest bit surprised.  Lydia was so unsurprised that it was hard to get a read on if it was the bad or good kind of unsurprised, which means Allison’s no closer to figuring out how Lydia feels about her.

Allison knows that Lydia saw Kira that morning in bio, and Scott and Stiles are close friends, so Kira and Malia hung out the night before.  She doesn’t know which of them spread the news, but it’s apparently going around.

“Yeah,” she confirms.  “Friday girls’ night in is date night now.”

“You never told me you liked her!”

“I’m just figuring things out myself now,” Allison admits.  It’s vague enough to be true, an important life skill Allison learned from being an Argent.  

“It should be really fun,” Kira says earnestly.  “You two are cute together.”

Allison thanks her, but she feels even worse about everything than she did before.  She isn’t as close to Kira as Lydia is, but Kira is one of her best friends.  She’s sweet and cute and gorgeous and, most importantly, an even bigger geek than Allison, and Allison feels comfortable with her.  Allison doesn’t like keeping secrets from her friends, especially when Kira looks almost wistful talking about Allison and Malia together.  

Allison doesn’t know if it’s more the fact that she’s lying to Kira or the fact that the next few days, Kira talks more about the date than Allison herself, and every single time that same mix of hope and longingis written all over Kira’s face, clear as day.  Either way, Allison dreads when the truth comes out.

* * *

 

When Malia says that they’re going to have a date night on Friday, Allison expects maybe a slightly longer movie night than normal.  

What she doesn’t expect is to be sitting in Malia’s apartment, eating pizza to the neon yellow light of 20 glowsticks.

“I didn’t have candles,” Malia says, like it’s obvious, anyway, and she’s indulging Allison.  “They aren’t allowed in the apartment.  Stiles had these in a box under his bed with his lube and dirty magazines, but they aren’t very bright.”

“So I don’t want to actually touch the glowsticks, then,” Allison jokes.  “Right.”

Malia, it turns out, is taking this dating thing seriously.  She cleaned the kitchen and put flowers out on the table, tells Allison that she can take them to her room with her when she heads back.  Malia holds her hand for a lot of the night, and as much as Allison is used to physical contact from Malia, it feels different than she expects when Malia is deliberately trying to date her.  Or trying to fake date her.  

When the date’s over, Allison feels silly for not taking it seriously in the first place.  Malia went all out, and now Allison can’t get rid of the warm feeling in her gut when Malia smiled at her and held her hand.  If it were anyone but Malia, she would forget it isn’t a real date.  The way Malia kisses her cheek at the door makes the feeling even stronger.

She’s doused with cold water when the quick peck ends and Malia quietly, uncomfortably reminds her to milk the story for all its worth with Lydia.

Allison thinks about Malia and the date a lot for the next few weeks.  She doesn’t know what to make of it, because she’s so used to thinking of Malia as just her best friend.  Malia has always been her most important person, and Allison was always comfortable leaving that be.

They go on a few more dates, taking turns picking what they’re going to do.  Allison agonizes about it more than she expects, combing through everything she knows about Malia to try and pick out something that seems romantic, instead of just something they would do together, anyway.  It doesn’t feel like fake dating when she has ten different tabs for restaurants up to pick someplace where they’ll both eat that won’t break Allison’s wallet.

She talks to Kira about it, because Kira seems like a neutral party.  She doesn’t admit what the point of them starting to date was, but she had already told Kira she was still figuring things out, and Kira is a good person to talk to.  She’s a good listener and is very sympathetic, though she doesn’t have much in the way of answers.  Allison doesn’t expect her to, really, but it’s nice to have someone to vent to.  And she gets to know Kira much better, as a result, because they get talk and then transition to happier topics, Allison laughing along, feeling lighter.

Allison gets a little bit too comfortable, because she admits that she likes Lydia, too, one day.  She expects everything to go south from there, for that to be the end, the moment when Kira starts to judge her for liking two people at once.  What happens instead is pretty anticlimactic.  

“I know,” Kira says, squeezing Allison’s hand.  It’s different from when Malia holds her hand or when Lydia drags her along by the hand, but it’s no less reassuring, even though Allison’s heart is wedged firmly in her throat when Kira says, “She, uh.  Maybe knows too?”

Allison is mortified.

“No!” Kira rushes to say when she sees Allison’s reaction.  “That’s, like.  Really not a bad thing at all, I promise.  You should probably talk to her, though.  We should actually probably all talk.  There are some things you should know.”

It’s no more reassuring for Allison, especially accompanied by the implication that there’s stuff she doesn’t know, but she texts Malia and Lydia a time to meet up to talk.

* * *

 

Everything spins quickly from there.

“ _Kira_  was the mystery kisser,” Allison asks, glancing back and forth between Lydia and Kira.  “All this time, and you never told us?”

“I knew,” Malia says, and Allison feels even more betrayed.  “Caught Kira with lipstick on her mouth when she came over to do homework.”

“I joked about her kissing it off, and she said she’d have to talk to you, first,” Kira says.  “I was a little bit hoping Malia would tell you and I could get out of it.”

“Oh my god,” Allison says, looking at the three of them.  “Is there anyone in this group who doesn’t want to kiss each other?”

“Nope,” Malia says, popping the p.  She leans close to Allison, and Allison can smell her watermelon gum. “All of us want to either make out, pretty much.”

“Which is why I think we should all just date,” Lydia says, like she’s being perfectly reasonable.  The other two seem totally unfazed by the idea, like it’s one they’ve heard before, and Allison once again feels like she’s playing catch up.

“All of us?”

Malia opens her mouth immediately, and Allison sighs.  “Boyd, Erica, and Isaac, I know.”

“Allison, Kira, Lydia, and Malia,” Kira responds thoughtfully.  “I think it has a nice ring to it.”

And, well.  Allison has a lot of questions, but she can’t exactly disagree with her.

* * *

 

“How long have you known the four of us would work together?” Allison asks Lydia one day when they’re in the kitchen together, cooking dinner.  The longer they’re all together, the more things fit into place; Lydia leaves lipstick smudges where Malia leaves bite marks, and Kira is softness and balance where Lydia and Malia are push and pull.  Everything is still mostly in pairs; they’re figuring out the four of them together bit by bit, but Allison is learning what it feels like to be under Lydia and on top of Kira, and how strangers react when they swap out couples on dates in public.

“From the moment I saw you and Malia together,” Lydia says.  “I knew it was only a matter of time  before she saw the way you looked at her.”

“What about me seeing the way she looked at me?” Allison asks.

Lydia stands on her tiptoes to kiss Allison’s cheek.  “It took you a little longer.  But you got there.”

When they get caught up in kissing and burn dinner for the four of them, nobody’s surprised.

Malia brings enough glowsticks to illuminate the pizza they order, and Allison’s smiles the whole way through.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com).


End file.
